Liam’s barber

Unlike Kenzo, Liam is kinda scared of getting a haircut. He would bawl upon learning that he is entering a barber shop, once he sees those big clunky chairs and a barber waiting for him while holding a pair of scissors is enough to make him scared. It is always tough to get his hair done but good thing,  Liam has a very nice shiny hair, surely the nicest set of hair I had ever seen, because of this he can delay haircuts as it always remained looking great.

When Kenzo started going to the barber he hated it, but after a while he learned to trust his permanent barber-Neil but one day after cutting Ken’s hair for about 3 years he just left and no where to be found.

Just today, mum brought Liam for a haircut and it seems he did not cry today. He entered my room shouting that “I got a haircut and did not cry and just closed my eyes like I were sleeping” (paraphrased for clarity).

House update

The house is doing just fine but not as fast as I would wish. Under normal situation the rough finish or structural is the fastest, it is almost like as fast as blinking. It is the finishing the will bore you to a long wait. But our house being constructed by Novillos Construction of Calamba Laguna is painfully slow. We started officially when we got our building permit in the early weeks of May and now is the first week of August, on its 3rd month, while they promised completion in 4 months, we are still waiting for the structure to be complete.

What I will noticed was there were only a few workers there, there are some occasion were workers were borrowed by their other site and that left our construction with a few ones.  They also don’t  have a cement mixer and instead it is just mix the old way, which of course will add to the delay. Initially, I thought it is just a small house and perhaps they will just fast tracked it in a few weeks but it did not happened. I am now starting to get worried.

Walls, columns, footings, windows and now the Roof trusses are up but electrical, plumbing, masonry has not started and also the 1st floor flooring is nothing but a muddy pile as of today, to see it very slow is a bit painful to watch.

Now there is also another issue, that I am not “in the know”, it is the status of our loan which of course will fund everything. It is being handled now by Mum and I am just told that all is OK. I am now worried to rush Novillos Construction when I don’t know when the funds will be coming.  I am trapped between rushing and having no money (yet).

One other concern I have is not having the expertise to know if all are within building standards. I just have to trust the construction company that they are telling me the truth and they are faithful to their oath as builders, and to just trust a contractor in itself is already a  scary thing and enough to make you go bonkers.

I am still hoping all will be well, and all will be done so that we can all start our life in a place that we can call Our Home.

 

 

Chikon

Liam loves fried chicken, yeah it is oily and unhealthy but he likes it. Sadly, it is not considered to be something of a go to food for toddlers but we cannot do much as Manila’s food are mostly salty, oily or sweet.

When he sees a Happy Donalds (Mc donalds) that is what he is going to get 4 out of 5 times, other times it is a toss up between Pancakes and Nuggets.

Compared to his brother, who is very picky, Liam is more of an eater.

He calls his favorite “Chikon” and he eats it with rice, sometimes even using his hands.

Close one.

Whew! That was a close call. I thought that is the end of it.
I suffered Diarrhea for about 10 days and it made me badly weak and dizzy, I had to go to the bathroom for about 10 times a day, for 10 days and it was really horrible. I was sent to the hospital at 2am and they pumped IV fluids in me. On the 9th day it still wont stop and I went to a Gastroentrenologist for help, she gave me a new set of meds and if that wont work I need to go thru Colonoscopy. Now that was a deal breaker, Colonoscopy is something I am not willing to do, it is embarrassing and expensive. SO if it will come to that I have to choose the easy way out.

I am fine with losing my life, as I had reached my peak and all seems to go downhill. I think the best part of my life and the best me was over.
Though I am ok with dying, I am not ready now. We are on the early stages of building our house, Kenzo will start at his big school and Liam has not been to the US with Kenzo yet.
I need to tick a few more boxes before I am ok to go, I think hopefully within 5 years, surely it should be.

 

Update: All is well and back to normal.  

We celebrated a birthday

Mum’s birthday was yesterday and it was kinda tough because of how RAMBUNCTIOUS Liam and Kenzo can be. When I was told that we are gonna eat out I suggested that it is perhaps better to eat at home, take out some food from a resto and enjoy at the comforts of our home. I am worried that if we eat at a nice resto there might be a chaos–named Liam and Kenzo that we might not be able to handle.

We all started at about 6pm and by around 6:30 we are all at the tables deciding on what to eatr. It is a nice Casual Dining place called Yabu and the ambiance is nice, lighting subdued and other diners are fairly quiet. Then in a few minutes  they both started to make the chopsticks as their drumsticks and later as a harry Potter’s wand. A while after they shifted to  walk over the long couch, climb the seats, fight for M&Ms, playfully act around, shout, fake cry and what really made it worst is when they both grabbed the Mango Juice at the same time and spilled it.

It is both a gift and a curse to have active kids and what I learned is that it is better to lay them off nice restos where you have to wait for a long time for the food to be served, it makes them cranky and they are like a wound up rubber just waiting to spring out. I think they can handle Fast foods where we dont have to spend a long time. It is like order, eat and head out.. to a toy store.

 

Another year

Another year has passed that add another year to this blog. I started this when Kenzo is about a year and a half old and now he is to turn 7 by Oct and now we have Liam along with us.

Currently I am with Kenzo downstairs.  He is eating some snacks and watching Ryan Toy Review on youtube while Liam is upstairs taking a nap.

BTW, today is mum’s birthday and I think there would be some fancy dinner at the mall tonight.

Well, hope to edit all my previous post to make it readable but looking back at it it looks daunting.

Hope all will be good for another year. I hope for another trip and we are all exicited how the house will look like when it is done.

Ciao!

Haus Construction

We are in the first couple of weeks in our house construction. And a few of my ideas I wanted to be adopted, it is more of a long term plan and it is more on necessity than style.

Reason why I agreed to buy this house it is because it has a separate lot that I can sell when Kenzo or Liam entered college. It is more of a college fund or investment whose value will increase with inflation and by the time Kenzo or Liam is in college the selling price of the lot is hopefully equal or more than the cost of college fees. I also made the house design with the future option to sell in mind. Like the location of windows, doors, entrance and even the front setback that we can also be converted to a carport should we sell the other lot.

But it turns out not what I expected. Mum is not to keen on selling the other lot, she just let me believe that she likes my idea just to go on with the house construction. Now the house has an overhang that encroach on the other lot. Windows are above the property line, I hoped it has a setback or an allowance so we can still open our windows should we sell the other lot.

I want the house to be in line to a minimalist style where we keep only important stuff inside the house to avoid clutter, accumulation of dust and to make it easy to maintain and clean. I prefer minimalist so that in the future we wont have to be dependent on a househelp. A house where we dont have too much stuff lying around, furniture that can be easily cleaned, open spaces, less house decors (that are just a big magnet for dust). We also need to limit our clothes and stuff that we keep.

One idea that I had recently  was how Jobs and Zuck wear the same style of clothes almost always and I realized that we can do that with our bedsheets and curtains etc. Truth is we dont need a bedsheets, pillow cases that is different every month. We can just keep about 3 sets and just alternate them. Too bad I bought several sets maybe about 10-12 already when I was in the US… well, maybe I just have to sell them perhaps.

It is hard to make someone a minimalist, we have a tendency to keep things and put heavy sentimental values to our things. We like to hoard and make boxes filled with memories that we wont bother to check again,  except only when you are very sick and about to die. We tend to over-appreciate our stuff, no matter how old and useless it is, and will not let go. Problem with this it will accumulate dirt, gather dust and become a nice home for little insects and pests.

I have been trying to make mum towards this but I am hardly making a dent, but I am still pestering her and still trying.  

I dont intend to keep a househelp, I feel it is a form of slavery and I dont really feel good about it… but having a maid is ingrained in our culture and maybe there are only a few of us who wants a home or willing to live without it.

Convincing Mum to  not have a house help is the hardest thing, as I said it is already ingrained in our culture, and it is even quite unheard of to think of not having one. 

I want all the important stuff settled first before thinking of the aesthetics. I prefer to make sure the house will have strong, continuous water before thinking about the nicest shower head, toilets etc. I want the house to be solar powered so we can freely use ACs to fight humidty. I think even with the most expensive exterior paints, interior design etc will mean nothing if the house is uncomfortable and humid. I believe an ugly house with AC trumps a nice house with poor ventilation.

We are just starting with the house and issues and disagreements are coming out, our ideas clashed and a common ground is often hard to reach. Well, goodluck hope will be able to finish this and set out roots in our new house.

 

II

problem with house construction is laymen don’t have the expertise to know what is standard measurement in construction. We cannot make the computations of loads, lateral loads etc on our own. We have to get another opinion of another engineer to determine if our house is within standard.

For example: Using of a 5′ CHB instead of 6′ for external wall, I was told that since it is just a small house a 5′ will do. Now there is now way to know if that is true or the contractor is trying to save cost to increase profits.

Wall spacing of vertical rebar,  I read ,to make house stronger should be 40cm but when I asked about this they said the standard for a 2 storey house is 60cm, then again I have no way to know this.

If anyone is gonna have a house constructed it is better to detailed all the specs you prefer on your house or get a standard quote from the con\tractor and asked it upgrade the materials to make the house stronger. Increase the size of hollow blocks, if they quote that they are gonna use 4′ CHBs upgarde it to 5′. If they told you that they are gonna  use a 10mm rebar, asked them to use 12mm etc…

Contractors incentive is to quote a low price so clients will give them their business, they  then will try to cut corners to increase profit.

It is a tough position to be in especially when you just youtube and google trained kind of a handyman.

What a question.

Kenzo just a few hours ago complained about his asthma and his itchy body and  asked us “why are these things happenning to me?”

I knew Kenzo is kinda like me and I am scared of it. I am suffering from PDD or Dysthmia or three decades now and the way Kenzo forward his question ,silently I knew, he is capable of deep thought, critical thinking, introspection, self analysis etc. Which are good things but also all of those can be a good push towards depression.

At an early age, he is already being hard on himself, maybe starting to dislike his situation, perhaps starting to realized that he is not getting a fair deal from life and these scared me. I knew how painful depression is and how it can ruin anyone and now I am faced with the possibility that I might have passed this gene to my kid.

Kenzo just broke his arm and was just healed a week ago, but now he has asthma and some rashes all over his body. He is in a bad state and the month of March and April has not been good to him.

When I was asked that question. I dont know the answer and I just gave the best BS i can think of. I just said, “he gotta do good things as good things will happen to those who do nice things” I asked his mum to massage him, I put on Vicks on his foot and covered it with socks, we  put Calmoseptine on his rashes and sang him a lullaby.

Kenzo is one brillant kid but I think his pre-disposition to sadness can be a hurdle to get what he wants in life… I just hope he will snap out of it and not fall the way I did.

Foreigner?

The Nana of Liam had been asked a countless of times, if Liam is a foreigner’s son or at least one of the parents are.  Liam has a different face and not very filipino, more Far eastern asian than south eastern. He can pass as a Chinese, Japanese or Korean and not very believable as a pinoy.

Some of the good points of Liam is his being pleasant and friendly, it seems he likes all people and would say “hi”, “bye”, “hello” to strangers automatically.

When he is dressed in real nice clothes I still always marveled how he look good, really, not because I am biased, but because really he is damn nice.

I ain’t religious

I am not religious. I had read more of R. Dawkins, C. Hitchens than bible verses. The only time I will watch a religious program is to be amused on how hard they try, how they make it dramatic, how they scare people with guilt and the ultimate punishment of eternal fire and that part they ask for donation always amuses me.

Now I am remiss in teaching my kids about God, Jesus etc. I really struggle because I myself is not 100 or even 10% into it. Good thing the school is squeezing a few bits and pieces about it otherwise they will be the only kids in this uber religious part of the world that cannot understand that if you pray Jesus can win you basketball games, make you pass exams, keep storm, floods, earthquake away from you. I will also struggle to explain how there are very poor people and very rich ones and why God don’t bother to assist the poor once in a while  to balance it all out.

But really how can I explain that Jesus is actually the son of God, but he is also a son of Joesph and Mary but Joseph is not his real dad.. yes, Mary is the real mom but God is not the husband. Jesus was sent here to wash our sins.. which was committed by Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God. yes, it is the sin of Adam and Eve but since we are human decendants of them we also get to be part of that original sin.  God sent Jesus , his son, to earth from heaven to show us the way, he was crucified, and die violently on the cross. after being dead for 3 days, he will resurrect and fly back to heaven.. yes, he flew like being transported up, similar to how aliens kidnap earthlings to their spaceship. It is like an invisible vacumn tube that just pull him up to the sky. Now by accepting Jesus that will wash away all that sin we inherited from the first humans. Now we need to accept Jesus with all our heart, it can not be half-hearted otherwise that will not count… and other blah-blahs.

Come what may, I just hope school will do its job because I cannot do that religious part.